Thursday, October 13, 2016

Adoration For Browns

For some reason, browns are special to me. I've always had a deep respect for them. They seem to be great at adapting and efficient at hunting. Arguably they are the smartest fish when they're combined with rainbows and brook trout. There is a feeling of accomplishment every time I catch a decent sized brown. Catching one over 15inches isn't a common occurrence for me. What I find interesting is the bigger browns I usually catch are on flies I have no real confidence in. Take this last fishing trip for instance. I've never been a huge fan of copper johns. I have friends that swear by them but they never worked well for me. I'm sure it's partly because of my confidence in fishing them. On this day I was running low on the usual softhackles I love and decided to try a rubber legged copper john. I didn't catch a ton of fish on it but did manage this largest fish of the day which happened to be a brown.
Do the larger browns hit these flies because they are less common and they haven't learned to avoid them yet? Or is it just luck? I have no idea but it keeps me reaching for those flies in the far corner of my box that get overlooked.

6 comments:

  1. I like the copper john but find that it's usually a fly of last resort. So I guess I would say something different peaked their interest. Nice looking brown too!

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    1. Thanks Howard. I agree that they are probably hitting the fly more out of curiosity than anything.

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  2. Fall browns are always so beautiful. We need to fish sometime!

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  3. A friend and I had this conversation last trip. For me and my area, I came up with they are the great whites of my river, wild, free, loners...you know they're around just waiting to kill something but rarely seen. Each one is a prize catch.

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    1. Browns do seem to be the big bad bruisers in the river. What's weird is the really big ones I've seen were in the middle of the day.

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